Dinner with Ray

Ray and I met for one of our beef nights. This time, the chef was good enough to cook his share of a Côte de Bœuf medium while keeping mine rare. I so happened to bump into some Kah Hin, Seong Wan and the Ahkongs there, who kindly shared their wines with me while I was waiting for Ray. Really nice stuff too. We then chased that with a bottle of CdP to go with the beef.

• 2002 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Folatières 93 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru

  Rather alarming advanced for a 2002 Leflaive 1er Cru, but I thought this was a beautiful wine at a beautiful place right now. It had a lovely nose, with classic Leflaive suggestions of flint and chalk and even seashelly mineral running through pretty Folatieres tones of ripe red apples, yellow fruit and meadow flowers, all topped-up with a little soupcon of cream. Very nice. The palate was really yummy when first poured. This had beautiful mouthwatering acidity draped across juicy fruit flavours, with apples and peach and ripe, sweet lemons at the fore. I thought there was nice depth and breadth of flavours here, and it was nicely threaded through with a lovely line of chalky, flinty mineral that opened-up to fill the backpalate along with a beautiful blush of warm spice and a nice nutty tail. Really elegant. This had everything I look for in a 1er Cru -lovely juicy acidity, vibrant energy, and beautiful purity - a joyous wine if I could call it that. The only problem I had is that it seemed really advanced and, given some time and air, as it warmed up in the glass, it just seemed to fall apart at the seams, become looser, flabbier and losing some of that lovely energy. I would seriously be looking at popping these soon if I had more than a few.

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• 1996 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Combettes 94 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru

  Wow, this was a solid, solid wine. Not quite a Grand Cru in quality (it lacked the sheer scale for that), but this is about as good as a 1er Cru gets. It put a really nice, albeit advance 2002 Leflaive Folatieres in the shade, and that is really saying something. The nose here was deeper, broader than the pretty Folatieres, with deep draws of gunflint, chalk and earthy mineral, ripe aromas of ripe red apples, and a nice little accent of roasted hazelnuts. Great stuff – rather more typically Leflaive than with the previous wine I think. The palate was just lovely. It had a soft, creamy texture, almost deceptively mellow at first, but there was a sense of muscular structure and lots of coiled-up strength that suggested that it still has a long way to go. Even on the night though, it drank beautifully, with delicious flavours of ripe red apples and white fruit laced with lovely integrated acidity, with a great spine of juicy, lemony notes emerging on the midpalate, before a long drive of savoury, salty, seashelly mineral filled just about every crevice of the backpalate. Powerful, yet effortless so, and ever so precise and impeccably balanced - this was lovely stuff; and unlike the 2002, it just got better and better in the glass. Great now, but it has the balance and depth to age effortlessly for quite some time yet.

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• 1996 Domaine Fourrier Griotte-Chambertin Vieille Vigne 92 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Griotte-Chambertin Grand Cru

  A good wine, even very good, but there was something a bit incomplete about this. It had a very attractive nose, with dark cherries and raspberries aromas with a sweet, slightly confitured character, along a touch of dried earth, dried flowers, and plenty of exotic spice, all topped off with a whiff of peaty cigar smoke. Complex and shifting and very nice. There was just maybe the slightest hint of TCA in there, but if so, it was so slight that I could not really be sure. In fact, any hint of corkiness on the nose did not seem to be present on the palate. The wine was very alive and vibrant in the mouth, with tons of almost citrusy 1996 acidity running through juicy, high-toned flavours of red cherries and berries seasoned with a twist of orange peel. Not tremendously complex, but there was a subtle depth to it and little secondary nuances of earth and spice and toast coming out at the finish. There was no doubt that this was a wine of some quality, and it was certainly pretty enjoyable. If forced to blind taste, I would probably still have called it a Grand Cru. However, there seemed to be something missing in there, with the strident acidity that dominated parts of palate calling for a little more flesh and weight on the fruit to balance it off. Was this an effect of TCA, or just the way the wine is - I am not sure. But on the current showing, I would say this was very good without quite being top class. Not sure it will get much better with time either.

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• 2005 Tardieu-Laurent Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vieilles Vignes 92 Points

  France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  A bit overwrought for my tastes - I like my CdPs rather more au naturel - but I must say that this was pretty good, especially when paired with a nice Côte de Bœuf. This had a big nose on it, with full-on aromas of ripe red cherries and cooked berries, roses and garrigue, smoke and spice. Save for a whiff of glycerol in there, I really quite liked it. The palate was very much in line with what the nose promised. It was still very young, still rather primary, with a darker-fruited expression of black cherries and sweet berries with a nice sappy depth on the attack and midpalate. High acid made for a good backbone for the fruit, and little bits of spice and garrigue and a little smoky twang at the finish lent a nice suggestion of nascent complexity. All very good actually. It was only at the finish were the heavy-handed wine-making showed up more in woody extracted tannins that left a drying grip on the back palate - somewhat marring the overall experience unfortunately. All that aside though, this was actually pretty impressive and enjoyable, especially with the beef serving to tame the rather unruly tannins somewhat. This is still very young though, and I suspect it will get better with time. It should be a very good wine in 10 years or so.

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